Monday, February 22, 2010

The Candahar at the New York Times & MacLean's Magazine

Great news. BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR has received a mention in the most recent edition of MacLean's magazine (on newsstands now) and a write-up about The Candahar has appeared in the New York Times.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR has become a runaway hit—a truly collaborative public art project—with over 300 hilarious, contrary & sometimes contentious, poems generated in just over a week. Thrillingly, Theo Sims, creator of The Candahar, has invited us to wallpaper the pub with your blackouts for display on last night of the show, Sunday Feb 28. After then, The Candahar comes apart forever. There is still a week left in the project, plenty of time to come down and be a part of BLACKOUT. And, if you've already made a piece, make sure to come out on Sunday and see the project come together in the space.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad . The best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

About

Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of five collections of poetry: CURIO (BookThug, 2005), HOME OF SUDDEN SERVICE (Nightwood, 2006), GOD OF MISSED CONNECTIONS (Nightwood, 2009), I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD (BookThug, 2012) and THE HOTTEST SUMMER IN RECORDED HISTORY (Nightwood, 2013). Her poetry has been nominated for awards including the Pat Lowther Award, The Kobzar Literary Award, The George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, the Governor General's Award for Poetry and the Bronwen Wallace Award, and has appeared in literary journals, anthologies and on film around the world. She was born in Regina, raised in Prince George and Maple Ridge B.C., and now lives in New Westminster where she is an instructor of creative writing at Douglas College.

God of Missed Connections

God of Missed Connections is a formidable work from this young poet: a considered and important contribution to the quintessential dialogue on Canada’s fractured collective history. ~ Vancouver Review

Home of Sudden Service

A slight book that packs a wallop of teenage angst, boredom and risky sexiness, this collection is set in the back seats on the back roads of Mission, Cultus Lake and all those roads that end at Hope. ~ BC Book World

Curio

Bachinsky writes for us, the inheritors of a debased estate in which the last elegiac strains are heard chiefly as canned schmaltz piped into the corridors. ~ K. Silem Mohammad

Head Shot

Photo by David Ellingsen

What They say

“Bachinsky's work, with its myriad of influences ranging from Eliot...to Lisa Robertson, is able to rise above the boring drone of the avant-garde-versus-traditional debates. Her work can straddle both sides: formal and experimental, personal and mathematical, with a keen ear for the erotically ridiculous.”

~ Zoe Whittall, Globe and Mail

“Bachinsky has won deserved admiration for her work, full of guts and verve, spunk and nerve.…straight-shooting, straight-talking…Bachinsky’s third poetry collection [has] that same rough beauty, sinuous toughness, of make-do carpentry that works.”

~ George Elliott Clarke, Halifax Chronicle/Herald

“God of Missed Connections is a formidable work from this young poet: a considered and important contribution to the quintessential dialogue on Canada’s fractured collective history.”

~ Deanne Beattie, Vancouver Review

“…enviably good.”

~ Mark Callanan, Quill & Quire

“…one of those rare poets capable of negotiating poetic forms with rigour and testing their limits, while never losing sight of the strange, dark music of what it means to be human.”

~ Jeanette Lynes, The Globe and Mail

“a poet…with an ear to the ground of 21st century culture. [Her work] grips you with yearning from the first verse to the last…"

~ Belinda Bruce, Vancouver Review

“[Bachinsky] doesn’t let any sign pass without spinning out possible signifiers. And she sees the signs everywhere."

~ Jacqueline Turner, The Georgia Straight

“A wonderful, wonderful poet.”

~ Keith Maillard, author of Gloria & Two Strand River

“One of the significant, exciting new poets to follow…one whose fine sense of form is equaled by a dedication to using the full spectrum of tone, style, and content.”

~ Todd Swift, Eyewear

“A major influence…”

~ John K. Samson, The Weakerthans

“A…poet concerned with tradition, but possessing an experimental impulse that gives her work a countercultural thrust.”

~ Stuart Cole, Quill and Quire

“An accomplished poet who thinks and feels in the forms she employs.”-

~ Malcolm Woodland, University of Toronto Quarterly.

“She says what she wants to say confidently and skillfully. I respect this kind of honesty…”

~ Alex Boyd, The Good Reports

“Bachinsky’s willingness to range fearlessly through history sets her writing apart...[she] should be lauded for raising big questions. We should also applaud her sheer moxie.”